


Renovation

by covered_lanterns



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4035475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/covered_lanterns/pseuds/covered_lanterns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He won't," Louis says. "This is a set-up. This is the stupidest set-up in history, and these are my muffins, stop <em>eating</em> them."</p><p>"I'm still eating the same one," Nick points out, reasonably enough, he thinks. "You can't possibly want it back."</p><p>"I do," Louis says doggedly. "I never said you could have it."</p><p>Nick is having a surprise set-up brunch with a toddler. He didn't remember Louis being quite this ridiculous when they were in school. But then again, it's been a while, and Nick's memory sometimes runs things together a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renovation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancingaardvarks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingaardvarks/gifts).



> dancingaardvarks, I hope you enjoy this! 
> 
> This is 100% alternate universe, relative ages included.

The first time Louis falls in love, real serious just-like-the-movies love, he's sixteen years old. It's fucking great.

"Your eyes," Nick says, backing Louis into a wall with his entire body, still trying to get his breath back, "your eyes are so blue. I never realized your eyes were this blue."

Nick's lips are pink and shiny and look just as soft as they feel. "Why the hell are you so tall," Louis says, straining up to reach them again.

Nick huffs a laugh against his mouth. "You're amazing," he says, and he sounds suddenly shy. Nick never sounds shy.

Louis swallows and thinks about three weeks ago, when he started realizing Nick was watching him across classrooms and halls, about last week, when they sat across from each other at McDonald's and Louis kicked Nick's ankle and Nick just bit his lip and smiled, and didn't try to say anything funny which was basically unheard of, and held Louis's hand under the table. He thinks about the feeling in his chest, crowded in between Nick and the wall, this feeling that's too big to fit and too good to let out, and Nick's wide goofy smile like he knows without Louis telling him, like he recognizes it just by looking into Louis's eyes.

"You, too," he says, and it sounds too small, too insignificant. But Nick's smile widens, and he buries his head in Louis's shoulder and mumbles "I'm so in love with you," right into Louis's skin.

Louis can't say it back. It's too big to say back, too startlingly real inside his chest, exhilarating and terrifying. It feels dangerous, even though he can't think where the danger could be. Nick already said he feels it too.

He kisses him again instead, tugs at his hair until Nick lifts his head enough that Louis can reach his mouth, bites his lip too hard just in case some clarification was needed. Nick is smiling against his mouth all through it, still smiling through the grumbling when they pull apart for a minute so he can touch his lip and ask if Louis is secretly a vampire, so Louis figures it's enough.

 

* * *

 

Nick's first three crushes are each devastating in their own way. They're different levels of secret, especially the one on Gabe from the rugby team, and they're different kinds of hopeless, because David Miller almost definitely looks at Nick's ass at least once, but David also has a girlfriend and Nick has no idea how to deal with that. But they all feel kind of the same: like they take over his brain and his life and his body, coloring everything he's doing, always somewhere in the background pushing their way forward, bright and sparking like an exposed live wire. In a way, he loves how they make him feel, but in another way, he's really relieved when they all fizzle out in two weeks or less.

The difference with Louis is – well, the difference with Louis is everything, really. It's still secret from everybody else, but instead of keeping it a secret from Louis himself, Nick gets to kiss him in dark abandoned playgrounds and in the lot behind the hardware store, gets to lie beside him on the grass in a park half the city over and tell him bullshit stories that make Louis laugh and roll his eyes, gets to stare into his face over pizza and trace every line with his eyes until Louis blushes and ducks his head and tells him not to be annoying. It's the same live wire, but Nick can touch it and it doesn't hurt, just feels amazing, like nothing else before.

So he's really fucking surprised when he realizes, a week and a half after the first time he kissed Louis, that it's starting to fizzle out again anyway.

 

* * *

 

The shittiest part is how worried Nick looks. Like Louis is going to yell at him, which is by all rights what Louis should do, and also like he's one step away from pitying Louis, poor stupid Louis who woke up this morning and felt like the world was a pretty fantastic place.

Louis is never great at holding his temper, and Louis has never felt less inclined to try. Everything inside of him has sort of been stunned into silence, but he can feel what's underneath that and how awful it's about to feel. He knows throwing that feeling at Nick as hard as he can is just about the only way to make it any kind of better at all.

But the silence lasts long enough that Louis remembers one crucial detail. He never actually said the words. There's a chance, just a sliver of a chance, that Nick won't look at him like he's sorry for him, that he'll have no idea what a gullible idiot Louis really is. Only a chance, and Nick should really be too smart to buy it, but Louis can't help but try.

"Oh," he says, as calm and casual as he can make himself sound. "I mean, I was still having fun, but if you want to stop then, you know. Whatever."

Nick looks startled. "You – wait, seriously?"

"Sure," Louis says. His voice doesn't shake. He doesn't look away from Nick's eyes. "Well, it's a bit insulting being dumped, you know? But it's not like this was a big deal. We didn't even tell anybody."

Somewhere below the frantic beating of his heart, he knows Nick is going to blink, take it in, think it over. Nick has always been nice, and Nick is a smart guy. Louis knows he'll smile and pretend to buy it and do his best to spare Louis's pride.

But he's looking right into Nick's eyes, because that's what you do when you aren't lying at all, and he sees the exact moment when Nick blinks, and takes it in, and he sees the wave of sincere and gigantic relief that takes over his face. He sees Nick go right for the load of bullshit Louis is handing him because he's just that desperate not to know how badly he fucked Louis over.

Louis is desperate for the exact same thing. He probably shouldn't judge Nick too harshly. Whatever.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 "Here at Core 103, we're all madly in love with Harry Styles, of course –" Fiona starts.

"It's those dimples, innit," Nick says.

"It's those dimples," she agrees. "Also, it's the way he always makes the best tea in the morning. Anyway, here's what we're not madly in love with: when Harry and Nick start going on about their good old school days. During that song just now? Madness. Here's a tip for all of our listeners, Mrs. Routledge who did history was hilarious. Hilarious! Nick never actually had her for history, but he knows."

"She really was hilarious," Harry puts in, nodding thoughtfully into the mic. Great radio, that Harry Styles. "Meant to be, I mean. We weren't bad-talking her or anything."

"No, you were only making the rest of us cry from boredom," Fiona says. "That's bad enough in my opinion."

"Harry and I," Nick informs the city, "are delightful company. We're smashing at parties."

"That's because you're only ever together at parties where everyone's had history with Mrs. Routledge," Fiona says. "Unless you're sneaking off together all the time in secret and never inviting the rest of us. Is that it? Harry, are you socializing behind our backs?"

"If you are, please keep on doing that," Matt says. "I've seen Harry's Instagram. I don't want anything to do with it."

"That's not very nice, Matt Fincham," Harry says. Between the slow drawl and the puppy eyes he actually seems sad about it. Nick relishes Matt's obvious struggle not to give in.

"Harry's pouting," Nick informs the microphone. "Very formidable pout, our Harold. I expect Finchy's about to break down and apologize any minute now. Don't let him have it too easy, Harry, at least make him come to your next party. We should all go to your next party! I never do get invited, and I so, so miss talking to people about having Mrs. Routledge for history."

"Which, again, you never did," Fiona says. "Of course, that didn't stop you from going on about it in code for six and a half minutes."

"And now we've given it an extra five hours of radio time," Matt says. "Well done, team."

"I don't still know that many people from school, really," Harry says thoughtfully. It's the rambling tone that gives no hint about whether it's going anywhere, the one that should mean by all rights that Harry should never be allowed on the microphone, and Nick has no idea why Fiona's smiling at him like that. Or why Nick is, for that matter. "Not well, anyway. There's my mates Louis and Niall, and Lloydie, but she's in London now. And now there's Grimmy, of course -"

"Now there's me," Nick agrees grandly. "Radio has reunited us. Core 103, the station of friendship and the heart."

"The station of going over yearbook listings," Matt says. "Grimmy, how about playing something? Unless you've just remembered a great story from math class, I mean."

"That does remind me," Nick says. "One day in year seven - all right, all right. Finchy is now holding a piece of paper with 'PLAY THE SONG' literally half an inch from my nose, so I suppose this might be time for some All Time Low. I'll just tell the story to Fifi while it's playing."

"I'm going to kill you all," Fiona says. Nick cuts to the song.

 

* * *

 

"Okay, how about – Liam, play it half a beat slower," Louis says. "Pezza, can you go a little higher, and then later we'll –"

"Bring up the bass line when she fades out, right," Liam says, catching on. "That's still missing something, but it might be better. Maybe something else just before that to make the sound bigger –"

"You're not putting a tuba on my track, Payne," Perrie says, stretching a toe out to poke him in the shin. "I'm not saying it didn't work for Jade, but it shouldn't have and it's probably never going to again."

"No, not a tuba," Liam says, smiling at her fondly as if she's being absurd. Tubas are a pretty absurd instrument, but as the person who brought them into the studio, he probably shouldn't sound that judgmental. He turns to face the piano again. "Let's go through it Lou's way, maybe we'll figure it out."

"No tubas," Perrie says warningly, then gets up to go to the microphone again, tapping her toes along to Liam's opening notes.

Harry shows up just after their third time through the new version. They're in the middle of a three-way argument about speeding it up again, because Louis decided by the second try that it was the most idiotic idea he's ever had, Liam thinks it'll be just fine once they figure out the missing element, and Perrie thinks they should do away with the bass line altogether and bring Leigh-Anne in to harmonize with her through the second verse.

"We already have her on two of the songs," Louis tells her. "Are we just bringing her in for the full album? That's a little more than what 'featuring' usually means."

"Fine by me," Perrie says. "Oh, hi, Hazza. Come tell us how good this sounds."

"Hey, Pezza." Harry grins at her and goes over to kiss her cheek, taking a beat longer than any normal person would with Liam right there in the room. Liam, being Liam, doesn't look like it ever occurred to him to mind. "Is this the giraffe song? I like that one."

"It's not about a giraffe," Louis says. "And no, we finished that one last week."

"And now we want to finish this one, so you aren't allowed to distract Liam," Perrie says. Perrie is an optimistic girl. Harry's already throwing a leg over the piano bench so he can sit down, facing Liam and much too close, draping himself over Liam's shoulder and as much of his body as Harry's octopus arms can reach.

"Hey, babe," Liam says, smiling down at the pile of hair Harry's just shoved in his face. Louis tries to give him some gently discouraging murder eyes, but Liam's too busy being in love and doesn't notice.

"Haz, come on," Perrie says. "Do I come into your work and try to cuddle producers? Liam can't be adorable with you right now."

"He can work like this," Harry says, a little muffled by Liam's shirt. "He does it all the time."

"I would pay you so much money to go and try to cuddle Matt Fincham through the show," Louis tells Perrie. "I'd never argue with you about chord changes again. I'd get Niall to give up that tour gig next month and come play for you at Trinity."

"I'm never going to play at Trinity," Perrie says, woebegone. "I'll have to cancel and explain I don't have any new material, because my producer has a boyfriend now."

"All right, all right," Liam says, laughing. He shoves Harry off gently, and laughs again when Harry shows no inclination to be shoved. "Perrie loves Trinity, babe. You're going to have to move."

"Do you really love it?" Harry says, reluctantly moving away a bit. "I know it's a bigger place, but they're not that great to performers, are they? One of Nick's friends played there last year, he said he'd never go near it again."

Louis absently strikes one down off his mental tally of Conversations He Can Have In His Life That Don't Somehow Involve Nick Grimshaw. So far the count stands at: years between 18 and 23 – infinity. Years between 23 and 25 – minus five thousand. He never should have let Harry apply for that job.

"It's my biggest show so far, and they asked me to do it," Perrie says. "That's as great as I need them to be. Jade's the only one around here who's famous enough to expect people to be nice to her. Did you see that article?"

They've been talking about the article for the past week, and Louis still feels the tug of pleased pride at the mention. It's the biggest any of their singers have gone yet - a real photo shoot and everything – although he doesn't really think that's anywhere near enough to start expecting fame-based niceness.

"Louis made me read it twice," Harry says. "Then Liam read the important bits out to me in case I missed something. Then they made me listen while they did a dramatic reading for Zayn and Niall. Then Liam wanted to hang the pictures up in his flat, but his mum's coming to visit soon and I told him she might get the wrong idea."

"You're the one who wanted to hang them up," Liam objects, giggling. "I'd never do that. Everyone who saw that would get the wrong idea."

"Liam Payne, creeper," Louis muses. "Kind of has a ring to it."

"No one would ever think Liam was a creeper," Harry says, offended.

"You're not the best influence," Louis says. "Okay, so what now? Can we go back to the fast version so I stop falling asleep in the middle of the chorus?"

Perrie starts singing so slowly Louis thinks he really will fall asleep before the third word is out. He should have seen that coming.

 

* * *

 

"Oh, it's you," Nick says, heading towards his seat. "What're you doing here? Come to steal our equipment?"

Louis snorts. He's in Harry's chair, sprawled so he's somehow filling it about three times more fully than Harry ever manages. "Where do you think you are? Nobody would ever steal your equipment. You know you're still using the X-553?"

"We do pretty okay with that," Nick says, as if he has any idea what X-553 is. As people keep telling him, in local radio you take what you can get and you say thank you for it. "Are you sitting in on the show? Because I'm pretty sure Finchy said he was going to fire Harry if that happened again."

"It wasn't that bad," Louis says dismissively. "It's not like it isn't always a madhouse in here. Can he even fire Harry? He doesn't really work for him."

It was actually pretty good radio, but Matt was looking like he was considering firing himself by the end of it. Nick disapproves of his producer having a nervous breakdown on general principles, and he disapproves of Louis Tomlinson being the cause on very specific principles on top of that.

Harry may possibly be Nick's favorite member of his production team – not that he'll ever say so – but the unfortunate side effect of Harry is Louis, and specifically, Louis being snide and sarcastic and making annoyed faces at every turn. He'd been that way all through sixth form, and it was petty and irritating even then. Nick had been glad they didn't see much of each other, and if it had occurred to him to think about the fact that he'd never see Louis again after A-levels, he'd have been glad about that, too.

Apparently 'never' didn't mean that much, anyway, so it's just as well he didn't think about it. It isn't as though he sees Louis that often now, but really, it's more than enough.

"Pretty much everyone in the station can fire Harry," he informs Louis. "I'm pretty sure the cleaning lady can decide to dock his paycheck."

"Harry has a paycheck?" Louis wonders. "Next you'll be telling me you have listeners."

"We're up five percent since October," Nick says, knee-jerk, before he can stop himself. He manages to shut up before he starts lecturing Louis about how well they're doing for a morning show on a regional station, at least. He's probably already heard it from Harry.

"Well, then Harry should definitely have a paycheck," Louis says. "Clearly it's down to him, he's the only new one."

The numbers are actually part of Nick's team's long-term, well-planned campaign to take over the universe, but Harry and his ability to charm people even when he can't dazzle them with his hair are definitely a help. "He's been here almost two years," Nick says. "He's not new anymore."

"Really?" Harry says, coming in. "Then why am I still doing coffee runs? Morning, Grimmy."

Nick turns to grin at him. "Morning, Harold. You don't have to be new to be the baby assistant producer. You'll always be the baby assistant producer. Maybe one day we'll have interns and they can take over."

"If we had interns, the station'd probably fire me," Harry says. "I'll just do the coffee runs." He passes Nick his coffee and goes to stand by Louis, leaving the tray with the rest of the cups on the desk in his wake.

"Here," Harry says, giving Louis the last cup. Louis smiles up at him. Nick hadn't realized that he looked sleepy, before; his face is unguarded, almost sweet. Harry ruffles his hair, then leaves his hand in place, buried among the strands.

"You shouldn't let them disrespect you like that," Louis says, wrapping one hand around his cup and the other around Harry's knee. "You're almost as old as Grimshaw. Isn't Fiona the youngest, anyway? She should be the baby."

"I don't mind," Harry says placidly. "You lot call me worse all the time, anyway."

"Well," Louis says, shrugging in a way that clearly means this is an irrelevant fact.

"Fifi's been here for years," Nick says. "I'm not sure she wasn't born here. She can't be the baby. And Finchy's too dignified."

"You be the baby, then," Louis says. "You've got the voice for it."

Nick scowls at him. "Have you ever actually heard yourself? Do you know what irony means?"

"I'm pretty sure Zayn just wrote a song about it a few months ago," Harry says. "Be nice, Lou. You don't want Nick to ban you from the studio."

"Finchy already banned him," Nick points out. "Not that I mind double-banning him just to make sure it'll stick."

"It's all right, we're going to behave this time," Harry says. "Right, Louis?"

"Absolutely," Louis says, expressionless.

"He'll be swinging from the ceiling before the first song's over," Nick predicts. "Finchy's too smart to buy that." Finchy's also a bit too persuadable, is the trouble, and part of that is Nick's own fault, chipping away at him over the years. Maybe Louis Tomlinson is his karma. What a terrible thought.

"Well, we'll see," Harry says easily. Nick kisses his quiet morning goodbye. Oh well; he'd been getting a bit bored this week, anyway. Maybe this is all for the best.

 

* * *

 

Harry Styles has been Louis's best friend since he was a teenager. Most of Louis's siblings consider him their favorite brother. He makes Liam smile more than Louis thought humans were actually capable of, and Liam's the guy Louis plans to work with until they're both old and grey and have no idea what music anyone listens to anymore, but more than that, Liam's someone whose smiling habits Louis is ridiculously invested in.

What all of that comes down to is that, while it's true that if Louis were to stab Harry with the hanger in his hand and stash his body in one of the changing rooms then all his troubles would be over and no one would ever be the wiser, he can't actually bring himself to do it.

"These are the exact same trousers as the ones you had on before," Louis says, very calmly clutching at the hanger.

"No, they're not," Harry says, looking himself over in the mirror. "The stripes are wider. I think you need to start dating again."

Louis revises his plan. If he stabs himself with the hanger, Harry isn't likely to have the sense to stash his body in one of the changing rooms, which means all of Louis's troubles would still be over and Harry might be taken down as his presumed killer and punished for causing most of them. As an important factor, in the new scenario Louis wouldn't be around to see Liam making wounded faces at him.

"It's been a year," Harry says. "I don't think you should put it off too long."

"It hasn't been a year," Louis says. He realizes with some surprise that he isn't actually sure how long it has been, that at some point he lost the exact count that used to be ticking down in his head since he'd said, "I don't think I can try anymore," and Dan had said, "Okay." Something like ten months. Something around that.

"It's been long enough," Harry says. "You've got to start again at some point. Why not now?"

"Because I don't want to start now," Louis says. It's pretty reasonable, he thinks. "I'll start when I'm ready."

Harry peers at him in the mirror. "You're not still hung up on Dan, are you?"

"No," Louis says. It's the truth. There was all that time when they were falling apart, and all that time when they were trying to fix it, and then all that time since. Dan's no longer the person he's surprised not to see every morning, his body is no longer the last body he's run his hands over. It's no longer true that Louis has spent his entire adult life in a relationship with him. It's been not-true for so long that it seems a bit odd that it was ever true in the first place.

"Well, good," Harry says. "Don't you think it's time, then?"

Louis pauses, actually thinks it over. Is it time? He can't tell if the no is habit or fact. He'd thought about it, months ago, and knew immediately that it wasn't an option. Now the certainty isn't there, but he can't tell what that means.

It isn't as though he hasn't hooked up with guys since the break up. It isn't even as though he hasn't dated, exactly, had dinner or gone dancing, even saw the same person twice. But it was only ever that, nothing more, and it isn't what Harry's asking about.

"I don't know," he admits. "Maybe. I'll think about it."

Harry beams at him. "Okay," he says, beautifully simple and only a little bit pleased with himself. Louis can't help but smile back, even though he already knows Harry's about to flag someone down to ask if they have the same trousers in very slightly lighter grey.

 

* * *

 

"The station's paying for this, right?" Nick says, looking over the menu.

"Yes, but just like every other time you ask me that, the station's only paying for normal drinks," Matt says. "basic tea or coffee, no fifteen-pound health drinks. This isn't television."

"Do they pay for fifteen-pound health drinks in television?" Harry asks, idly twirling a sugar packet. "Maybe I picked the wrong career."

"Couldn't help yourself, could you," Nick says, squinting at the menu again. Television would have bought him a Chocolate-Glazed Hazelnut Mousse Cake along with his millionaire's health drink. It's good for his waistline that he isn't in television. "Saw my name in lights and had to follow in the footsteps of your old school chum –"

"We barely knew each other in school," Harry objects, smiling. "And your name isn't even in lights enough to get you the really good coffee."

"No," Nick agrees sadly. "Shoddy lights, really. The station won't foot the electric bill, either." Everyone else groans, except for Harry, who's a kind soul even when he won't claim Nick as his inspiration and role model.

"All right, less talking, more deciding," Fiona says. "Is everybody ready to order? I need tea."

"I'm ready," Nick says, deciding to live the high life and pay for his own cake alongside his basic radio coffee. Matt nods. Harry squints at the menu some more.

"Well, you'll have to decide by the time we're done ordering or do with water," Fiona says after a moment of silence. Fiona and Harry can be disgustingly affectionate with each other sometimes, but Nick is pretty sure the irresistible force of her very limited patience and the immovable object of Harry's need to spend ten thousand years thinking things over are going to come together and destroy the world some day.

Harry settles on chai latte by the time the waiter comes around. Matt sighs but ignores it.

"Oh, I meant to ask, are you still seeing Gino?" Fiona asks Nick, while the waiter lingers over clarifying their orders and, Nick suspects, trying to figure out if Harry 'False Advertising' Styles is single. "You haven't instagrammed anything with him for a while. I miss his arms, they made my afternoons cheerier."

 "No," Nick says, giving her an exaggeratedly tragic face. "He's finished his Masters and gone back home last week. I'm broken-hearted."

 "Are you really?" Harry says, leaning over the table a bit. He's looking at Nick with an intensity that would be somewhat intimidating coming from a normal person, but only reminds Nick why he's so confusing to waitstaff everywhere.

 "No," Nick admits. "It was just three months, really, and I did know he was leaving. It was nice, but mostly I think I liked having someone around every night."

 "As opposed to someone around every other night," Matt says.

 "Matt Fincham," Nick says, eyes wide, "are you implying I'm easy?"

 Matt snorts. "Mostly I'm implying you have too many friends who still like slumber parties."

 "Finchy wouldn't mock you for having sex, anyway," Harry puts in. He's sitting back now, loose-limbed as ever, laser focus turned off again. Nick is almost entirely sure he's joking.

 "I would, but not so much for the having sex part as the being himself part," Matt says. "And please don't tell Twitter I'm doing sexual politics wrong, Styles. Last time you told them anything, nearly ten people tweeted me to tell me off. I had no idea that many people'd even heard of Nick."

 "Oi, of course they have," Fiona says. "We're up two percent since February."

 "Yes, so this time it could be up to twelve people," Matt says. "All right, we did come here to work. Fifi, did you hear anything back about next Thursday?"

  

* * *

 

"No, Dori, come on," Louis says. "Go play over there with Ernie, okay? See, we brought all of your trains over. You don't want Ernie to have all the trains, do you?"

He ignores Liam's reproachful look, clearly meant to make Louis feel bad for not trying to nurture the spirit of giving and sharing in his baby sister. Louis knows better. Dori is a four year old, a youngest child, a twin, and a Tomlinson; possessive blood-thirstiness is both inevitable and necessary. Besides, Liam's been anything but helpful the entire afternoon, he doesn't get to judge.

"No," Dori says, ignoring all of this. "I want to sit with Zayn."

"I know, but I told you," Louis says, somehow finding new reserves of faux-patience, "Zayn can't play right now, he has to work. Tell her, Zayn."

"Aww, but she likes me," Zayn says. Louis honestly doesn't know why he bothers. "She won't be in the way."

"Yeah, I know that," Louis says, because actually, besides refusing to budge, Dori's been an angel all day. "What's in my way is the two of you getting distracted every time she does anything. Really what I should do is put you and Liam in time out and get her to help me with this."

"Dori wouldn't let you put us in time out, would you, love?" Liam says. Dori shakes her head.

"Oh, for –" Louis says, swallowing the rest down with the ease of long practice. "Fishsticks."

He ignores Liam giggling like an idiot and goes to flop down next to Ernie, who's somehow still entirely absorbed in the toy trains. "Let's just stop pretending we're doing anything until my mum takes them back. Everybody go home." Nobody does, of course. Zayn is pointing something out on Dori's arm and tickling her ears while she cackles like a hyena.

"Hey, sweetheart, having fun?" Louis asks Ernie. "Can I have one of those?"

"No," Ernie says, snatching back the train Louis was closing in on. At least he's done something right with them.

Ernie is a nicer kid than most of his family ever was, and Louis manages to coax him into giving up some tracks and a train car before too long and starts building him an amazing bridge. He loses track of time a bit, until Zayn comes over and lays down on the floor, head on Louis's thigh. On the other side of the room, Liam is dangling Dori by her ankles while she swings her arms wildly around.

"D'you want a train?" Ernie asks, actually distracted by the magic of Zayn Malik, baby magnet.

"No, thank you," Zayn says seriously. Ernie shrugs and goes back to dragging his pile of engines across the floor.

"Want to try the bridge, Ern?" Louis calls out. Ernie ignores him. He's probably right; it could use a bit more work.

"Liam says you had another date last night," Zayn says, eyes closed. Louis pets his hair absently and tries to figure out how to prop up another piece of track without making the entire structure fall apart.

"Third one," he says. "Pretty sure we both knew it was a bust by the second one, but he's really fit."

"Worse reasons for a third date," Zayn says. "Not seeing him again, then?"

"No," Louis sighs. "At least this time it was fun. Let me tell you again about William the publishing guy."

"No," Zayn says. Louis is unsurprised.

"So what's next?" Zayn says after a while. Louis's bridge is now a monstrosity of levels with no clear exit lane. Liam is helping Ernie do a handstand, complicated by the fact that Ernie's still holding on to one train engine, while Dori looks on critically. Louis had thought he'd fallen asleep.

"Not sure," he says, rearranging the top level. "Think I can decide to go back to not being ready?"

"Sure," Zayn says. "Are you? Not ready, I mean?"

"No," Louis admits reluctantly. "Just not sure how I feel about the dating life. It didn't use to be that way, did it?"

Zayn snorts. "You were what, twelve when you started seeing Dan? Yeah, dating's a little different now."

"Twenty," Louis says, flicking a finger at the vulnerable underside of his arm. Zayn moves enough to ruin the shot without even opening his eyes. He's probably still right, really.

 

* * *

 

"I brought this wine," Nick says, putting it on the kitchen table, "even though Collette says it proves that I have no taste in alcohol, because I figured if you agreed with her you could just make Liam drink it."

 "He does drink absolute rubbish, doesn't he?" Harry says, opening a drawer. He sounds traumatizingly fond. "Here, set the table, would you? Just for three. It's the first time I'm making this, I thought I wouldn't try it out on too many people yet."

 "I'm honored to be your lab rat, Harry Styles," Nick says. "What is it, anyway? It smells amazing."

 "Pomegranate chicken with mushroom and herb pilaf," Harry says. "Remember a few months ago, when we did the phone interview with the lady who won Bake Off last season? We got to talking when I was setting it up –"

 "Of course you did," Nick says.

 "And we send each other recipes sometimes," Harry says, ignoring him. "She sent me one for parsley cake, too, but I'm not sure you lot would be willing to try that."

 "It's possible I'm not open-minded enough for parsley cake," Nick says. "Although I bet you could talk Liam into it. When's he coming, by the way? And where are your wine glasses?"

 "In there," Harry says, pointing out the cupboard with the wooden spoon in his hand. "Liam couldn't come, actually, he had a thing. Could you pour the wine? This'll be done in a minute."

 "Who's the third, then?" Nick says, hunting for a bottle opener.

 "It's in the second drawer," Harry says. "I invited Louis, he should be here any minute, too."

Nick pauses in the middle of rummaging through the second drawer, turning to stare at him. "What?"

 "Is it not there?" Harry says.

 "Louis Tomlinson?' Nick says, just to check.

 "I don't know too many others," Harry says. "Or – no, I suppose I know three. But yes, Tommo. That's all right, isn't it?"

 "Not really?" Nick says, extremely confused. "Was part of the recipe having people insult each other all the way through dinner?"

"No, and you shouldn't do that," Harry says. "You should focus on enjoying the pomegranate."

 "But – why?" Nick says. His hand has apparently found the bottle opener when he wasn't paying attention. He picks up the wine bottle. "You _have_  noticed we don't exactly get along, haven't you?"

"I think you would if you tried," Harry says. "Why not try over pomegranate chicken?"

 "Because we'll end up throwing it at each other?" Nick says.

"You still haven't opened the wine," Harry says, by way of an answer, and then there's a knock at the front door.

 

* * *

 

"What the hell was that?" Louis demands.

"What was what?" Harry says. "You're the one who called me, Lou."

"That was the most awkward meal I've had in my life," Louis rants. "Or let me put it this way, that was the most awkward five minutes of a meal I've had in my life, and then you decided to run off in the middle of your own dinner and it became the most awkward visit I've had to some middle circle of hell."

"Did you not have a good time?" Harry says. He has the gall to sound disappointed.

"That's not what a visit to hell means, no," Louis says. "I was trying my very best not to start an argument –"

"Oh, good," Harry says.

"—Because I just wanted to finish my crazy chicken and be out of there," Louis says.

"How was it, by the way?" Harry says. "I thought I might put more thyme in the pilaf next time."

"I don't care about your thyme, Styles," Louis says. "I was _trying_ to eat and not get into a fight. That lasted almost three minutes, but then he opened his mouth."

"Oh," Harry says, sounding downcast. "I thought maybe if I left you alone for a while, you'd see you could get along after all."

"What the hell gave you that idea?" Louis asks. "I knew you didn't really have to help your neighbor with her sink. You're a crap liar."

"Well," Harry says philosophically, "At least you enjoyed the food. You did enjoy the food, right?"

"Yes," Louis says, giving up. "The food was great, the company was crap, and you may be getting dementia. You owe me for this. I'm going to have nightmares for weeks about looking across dinner tables and seeing Grimshaw there sneering at me."

"I think you should give him a chance," Harry says. "You two have more in common than you think, you know."

Louis is struck dumb for a second by both this idea and its implication.

"Harry Styles," he says, slowly, "Are you trying to fix me up with Grimshaw?"

"Why not?" Harry asks. "Think about it. I think you could be good together."

"Never, ever say that to me again," Louis says. "I'm hanging up now."

"We're still going to brunch on Saturday, right?" Harry says.

Louis pauses. "Are you going to bring any surprise guests with you this time?"

"No," Harry says. "I won't bring any surprises with me at all."

 

* * *

 

"Are you joking?" Louis demands. "You're crashing my brunch. You can't have any muffins. What are you still doing here in the first place? Harry clearly isn't coming."

"He might," Nick says. It's kind of amazing. Pretty much everyone Nick has ever met would agree that he's an easy-going person who avoids conflict whenever he can. It's just that Louis is so consistently an ass, has been for years, and something about him makes Nick want to push back.

"He won't," Louis says. "This is a set-up. This is the stupidest set-up in history, and these are my muffins, stop _eating_ them."

"I'm still eating the same one," Nick points out, reasonably enough, he thinks. "You can't possibly want it back."

"I do," Louis says doggedly. "I never said you could have it."

Nick is having a surprise set-up brunch with a toddler. He didn't remember Louis being quite this ridiculous when they were in school. But then again, it's been a while, and Nick's memory sometimes runs things together a bit.

"You know, we have bigger things to worry about," he says, ignoring the way Louis' death glare has lost no wattage at all. "I don't understand why Harry would do this. I told him I didn't want anything to do with it –"

"I told him he had to be crazy if he thought I'd touch your dick with a ten-foot pole," Louis interrupts, before Nick can ask if he'd had the same conversation. It's answer enough, Nick supposes, but there's really no reason to put it quite so insultingly. Louis' tone and his glare combined suggest that if he had a ten-foot pole to hand at the moment he'd be putting it through some part of Nick, possibly the one just mentioned.

Of course, Nick thinks, that would mean Louis _was_ touching his dick with a ten-foot pole, so possibly he was lying about that. All right, that is not a productive line of thought.

"Great," he says, faux-sincerely. "Very original. Anyway – so we both told him this wasn't going to work. Harry's usually a pretty decent listener. Why is this still happening?"

Louis sighs and leans back, some of the rigidity going out of the lines of his body. He lays his head as far back as it will go, and flaps a hand at nothing in particular Nick can identify.

"Because Harry's a bloody romantic," he says, aiming it at the ceiling. Nick watches his throat move with the words in lieu of being able to see his face. It's mildly hypnotic. "He's always been a romantic, hasn’t he? And now he's got Liam, and believe me, you haven't met Liam much but that makes things a million times worse. Not to mention that now that they're disgustingly in love they want to return the favor –"

"Harry said you set them up," Nick says, suddenly remembering. Apparently he's the victim of Harry's very sweet attempt at payback. Fuck his life. Harry _is_ very sweet, but he's also extremely stubborn when he thinks the situation calls for it, and Nick suspects Louis is going to poison the muffins next time.

"I didn't," Louis says. He sounds disgusted by the very idea. "Do you really think I hate myself that much? Zayn set them up, and then he roped me into helping, as if those two ever needed any help at all. He thought Liam would be stuck at giggling and blushing for a year before anything happened. Just goes to show he has no idea how efficient Harry can be when he wants to."

Nick's been working with Harry for a year and a half now, and he can honestly say he had no idea Harry could be very efficient at all. To be fair, though, he can't remember ever seeing Harry _want_ to be efficient, and that could very possibly make a difference.

All in all, that's a pretty alarming theory right at this moment.

 

* * *

 

"No," Nick says, when he realizes who just walked into the café. "No, this is too much. Is he tapping my phone? How did he even know I was going to be here?"

Louis has been doing silent shock instead of babbling shock, but his expression is slowly settling into a scowl. "I know where the leak is at my end, at least," he says. "Fucking Niall. He's like James Bond, he smiles at you and you forget to be suspicious."

"That's nothing like James Bond at all," Nick feels compelled to point out. Louis's scowl focuses more clearly on him.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" he says. "What, you just sit in cafes by yourself in the middle of the day now? Want me to find you some paint so we can write 'easy target' on that horrifying shirt?"

"Yes, how dare I wear a shirt that doesn't look like it's been around since before I was born," Nick says, stung. Yes, it's a pretty experimental outfit, and it's been getting some mixed reactions, but Louis Tomlinson isn't the guy who's going to guide his fashion choices. "I was supposed to meet my friend Daisy. She's met Harry maybe once. I don't understand how he does that."

Louis huffs. "I know you don't really remember any of us from school, but you've been working together for ages now. You can't still be surprised at people falling over themselves to give him whatever he wants. Just because what he wants is bloody mental right now doesn't make him less magic."

Nick is still stuck ten seconds back, blinking at Louis's annoyed eyebrow raise. "Of course I remember you from school. I mean, I didn't see much of Harry, and all I really remember of Niall is the accent, but obviously –"

Louis cuts him off, looking towards the counter across the room like he's done with the conversation. "Well, you've seen enough of Harold since then to know better. You shouldn't sic him on unsuspecting people and then wonder why they're helping him do…" he waves his hand between them. "Whatever this is."

Nick would have thought Daisy was more resilient than that, but he supposes Louis has a point. He also supposes the thing to do now is swear to be ever vigilant and let Louis wander off, which he clearly can't wait to do. Louis is still staring at the counter like everything he's ever wanted is hidden behind the glass casing.

The problem is, of course, that Nick doesn't like being ignored, isn't really inclined to try and make things easy on Louis at this point in their acquaintance, and doesn't doubt Louis will just walk away mid-sentence if he really feels like it, with no need for Nick to help him on his way. "So what about you?" he says. "How come you didn't know better?"

Louis scowls again, but it's still directed at the counter. No good. "I did know better. I just let my guard down at the wrong minute. Nialler's pretty well immune to Harry by now, but this is exactly the kind of thing he'd think was hilarious."

"Well, fine," Nick says. "Sit down already and we'll figure this out. Since just expecting anybody we know to make sense all by themselves is apparently too much to ask."

Louis's gaze swings back to him, startled. Nick does a mental fist pump of victory, even though that isn't the point of anything.

"Come on, then," Nick says. "You're scaring the staff. Tell you what, I'll get you a muffin to make up for the one I ate. I know you're still thinking about that one."

"You don't know anything about me," Louis says, and stomps off before Nick can say anything. He has just enough time to sigh before he realizes Louis's stomping is taking him towards the counter, not the door.

 

* * *

 

His coffee doesn't take long, but making his way back to the table takes a while, because his cup is very full and also because he really doesn't fucking want to be going. It's enough time to come up with the beginning of a plan, anyway.

"I'm going to find someone for Zayn," he announces, sitting down. "It's the only solution."

Nick looks up, startled. "Beg pardon?"

"Zayn," Louis says, slow and clear. "You know, our mate Zayn? He was at Harry's during that thing last month."

"Yes, of course," Nick says. The look on his face says, _you think I could forget those cheeckbones?_ Or maybe it means the eyelashes, or the jawline. Zayn's face has a lot of things going on. Louis doesn't speak Nick Grimshaw.

"Don't even think about it," he says. "I'm not setting him up with _you_. I don't know why Harry hates me enough to think this is a good idea, but Zayn and I are actual proper mates."

Nick's eyebrows are slowly climbing up. "Believe me, I wasn't thinking about it," he says. "I've definitely had enough setting up for one month. Possibly for one lifetime. Maybe I'm just going to be single from now on."

"Sure," Louis says. He focuses on not letting his fingers clench around the cup. He can't really blame Nick for hating this as much as Louis himself does, but Nick has this mysterious way of infusing absolutely everything he does with Smug Bastard, and it's infuriating.

"What's so terrible about setting him up with me, anyway?" Nick says. "No, never mind, don't answer that, I can tell it'll make me go curl up in the corner and weep. Tell me why we're setting Zayn up with anyone."

He gives a tiny, dorky, self-deprecating grin on the weeping part, more just a tilt of his lips around the words, his eyes crinkling up just the tiniest bit. Something about the light coming in through the window is making his freckles stand out more than usual. Louis is suddenly more angry than he's been at any point since Harry's started pushing this, and he's been angry a lot, and it's honestly kind of startling.

"I need a biscuit," he says, and flees to the counter again.

 

* * *

 

It turns out that Nick's inexplicable choice to stick around is actually good. By the time Louis chooses and pays for his biscuit – actually a chocolate croissant in the end – he realizes the one big stumbling block in his plan: between producing Zayn's music, sort-of-kind-of functioning as his half-assed manager, and spending way too much time with him in his life in general, 90% of the people Louis knows are people Zayn already knows as well. The only way this could be worse would be if Louis was trying to fix Liam up - which he never did, no matter what anyone claims, but the fact is that Liam's love life took care of itself the moment Harry moved back home. Everyone Louis knows who moved away for uni is either already back or never planning to be; he has no surprise big-haired yeti people to drop on Zayn, Liam's already used up his entire supply.

He explains all of this more or less patiently to Nick, who listens all through it with actual patience mixed with some confusion, and nods understandingly on the Harry part. Louis is pleased enough that he kind of wants to forgive him for that muffin, but he holds strong. Nick'll be doing something else aggravating soon enough, so why bother?

"I'm not so clear on why it's good I stayed, though," Nick says. "Except for brainstorming. I'm great with brainstorming."

"Well, you know thousands of people, don't you?" Louis says. "What about that friend of yours, the gigantic one? Alex, right? Harry likes her, and Zayn's always had a thing for other preternaturally pretty people." It's probably evolution at work. Ordinarily Louis wouldn't be helping it along, because he's a little scared to find out what Zayn's babies will look like with that kind of genetic insanity, but desperate times and all that.

"Alexa?" Nick says. "No, she's seeing someone. And they'd have a bit of a height problem."

Louis just stares at him, irritation scale suddenly at four thousand and climbing. Honestly, of all the small-minded bullshit. He's glad he stood firm on the muffin front.

"Hey, don't blame me," Nick says, hands in the air. "Those are Alexa's issues, not mine. I suppose when you look like that you have to find some way to limit the dating pool."

"Fine," Louis says, pretending to relent as a passable substitute to actually doing it. "Somebody else, then. Who's the best person you know? Single. Either gender."

"Well, the first person who comes to mind – I don't know much about Zayn, but I do know she'd murder him in his sleep before the month was out," Nick says. "Or maybe he'd be murdering her. He's very… calm, isn't he?"

"Annoyingly so," Louis says. He's vaguely aware that he shouldn't be able to make that sound defensive.

"Well, like I said, I don't know much about him besides that," Nick says. "Very calm. Nice at parties. Amazing eyelashes. That doesn't really give me much to go on when it comes to fixing him up. By the way, I still have no idea why we're fixing him up in the first place."

If nothing else, Louis has always given Nick credit for being fairly clever, but he can admit his judgment is wrong sometimes.

"Because I want to stop being Harry's pet project," he says, eyebrows raised. "So I'm making Zayn his project instead. The key to survival is knowing when to sacrifice other people." It's not like Zayn can complain, anyway. Louis is going to find him someone amazing, see re: already rejecting Nick as a candidate.

"Well, it's hardly Harry's project if it's you fixing him up," Nick says, as if Louis can't find ways to engage Harry in the whole thing long enough that he'll forget the whole Louis-Nick Grimshaw plan. "If you're going to do that, you should make Harry find him someone. If anyone knows thousands of people it's Harry Styles."

"Huh," Louis says, surprised. "That actually makes sense."

Nick rolls his eyes. "Imagine that."

"I can't just tell Harry we need to fix Zayn up, though. Even Harry's not that oblivious," Louis says. Besides, there's a specific but very badly defined range of subjects Harry's anything but oblivious about, and Louis has the uncomfortable feeling this whole thing may fall into it.

"Get Liam to do it," Nick suggests. "Wait, no, is Liam any good at keeping secrets from him? Because from all the stories Harry's ever told me it sounds like they're both terrible at it."

"The worst," Louis says. "I'll get Niall to do it. He owes me that much." Overcome by the sense of satisfaction – there's nothing Louis loves like the feeling of a plan coming together, even a plan that essentially has a step and a half to it – he picks up his butter knife and points at his croissant, still mostly whole and waiting. "Do you want some of this?"

Nick grins at him. Louis feels a small, faint reminder of the unexpected anger of before, but it gets swallowed in the gratification of the plan and of the fact that soon he'll be back to seeing Nick Grimshaw three times a year or less.

 

* * *

 

"Zayn's what," Louis says.

"Dating Leigh-Anne," Harry says again. "He just told me."

"Of course he isn't," Louis says, slowly coming to grips with the tragic, tragic fact of betrayal. He can't believe he trusted Niall again. It really is that damned smile.

"It's true," Leigh-Anne says, folding her legs under her. "We're in love. We'll have gorgeous babies."

Everyone Louis knows hates him. "Do you even know what you're doing to me right now?" he demands.

She grins at him sunnily. "Just spreading the love, Lou. Aren't you happy for me?"

"I'm so sorry I let Liam talk me out of that reverb on your track last week," Louis says, completely sincere.

Harry frowns. "You said he was right about that. Actually, you said you only thought it was a good idea because you were having a psychotic episode. What's that got to do with Zayn and Leigh-Anne dating?"

"I did say that," Louis says, teeth clenched. Leigh-Anne is still smiling at him fondly, because she's always been under the misguided impression that he loves her and her music and only wants what's best for her and it. Well, it's not entirely misguided in that it's been true until this very moment, but Louis's horror is powerful enough to rewrite history in its wake.

"I think it's a sign," Harry announces happily, because of course he does. "Mercury in retrograde –"

"You don't know what any of those words mean," Louis points out. Harry's crimes are generally more on the meditation and almond milk side. It's terrible in its own way – the last time Louis ordered pizza for lunch, Liam actually tried to pretend for a moment like he wasn't going to have any – but it isn't astrology.

Harry ignores him. "It's time to fall in love."

"I'm pretty sure it means the opposite," Louis says. He has no real idea why he knows that, and he's fairly sure Mercury isn't actually doing anything at all, but he has to admit it seems pretty appropriate for Harry's terrible Nick and Louis campaign. That's Harry Styles in a nutshell, really: taking five wrong turns and still somehow coming up with something right, even if it's not even close to what he was going for in the first place. Also, destroying Louis's sanity in the process.

The kitchen door opens and Niall sticks his head through, the music becoming even louder. "Oh, there you lot are," he says. "Why're you hiding in here? Don't let Haz near the crisps cupboard."

"I don't eat crisps," Harry says haughtily. It's largely true; Harry mostly only eats snacks so healthy they lose most of the taste and so expensive he can't really afford them.

"You do when you're stealing mine," Niall says, effortlessly nailing the exception to the rule. "Leigh-Anne, I'm trusting you to keep my food safe. I need Lou to come help me move Ed's bed so we can put all the furniture in there."

"No," Louis says. "You're a traitor. Harry can help you."

"Sure, you put up with Liam pouting at you after he fucks up his back again," Niall says. "No thanks. Come on."

"Make Liam do it, then, he can probably pick it up all by himself," Louis says. "Or, hey, here's an idea, Ed can move his own bed."

"Liam's not here yet, Ed's fucked off somewhere, and Jesy keeps threatening she'll prove to me that she can do it," Niall says. "Have you seen Jesy? If she picks up a chair it'll crush her. Come on before people just start dancing on top of the furniture. It's not that heavy, I'm pretty sure you can do it."

Niall is an evil leprechaun and a traitor to every righteous cause, but it's not like Louis can say no after that.

 

* * *

 

"Okay, look, put everything you can lift on the bed, I'll start bringing things from the living room," Niall says. "Ed had better appreciate this. It'll probably be the first party where no one has sex in his room."

Louis isn't really sure the people they know have been having that much party sex in recent years, but he wouldn't take any bets on it. Ed has a nice bed.

Niall comes back before Louis can do more than tip Ed's computer chair onto the foot of the bed, but when Louis turns around to see what he's brought, it isn't actually him.

"Oh, sorry," Nick says, surprised. "Wait, what? Don't tell me they got Greg into this now."

"Bloody hell," Louis says, giving up on the world.

"Please tell me this isn't your actual house," Nick says, sounding pained.

"It's not," Louis says. Nick steps further inside and sinks down onto the side of the bed, flopping back so he's lying parallel to the chair, staring at the ceiling. Louis drops down to sit beside him. There's a limit to how much ridiculousness he can take from his friends and still try to help them save their furniture.

"Greg told me this was his friend Ed's party," Nick reports to the ceiling. "Is that even a real person?"

"Surprisingly, yes," Louis says. "He's Niall's flatmate. I don't suppose this Greg thought to mention that part."

"No," Nick says. "Two months ago I'd have guessed he didn't know, but, well. Greg works at the station. He's definitely met Harry."

"Right," Louis says, staring at the wall in vague disbelief. He can't bring himself to summon up any stronger disbelief anymore, since this is very clearly a thing that's happening. He wonders if Niall is actually coming back or if they'd managed to quarantine this part of the flat somehow. It's not a very big flat.

From the corner of his eye, somewhere to the bottom right, he can see where Nick's extremely yellow shirt has ridden up a little. He has a very pale stomach.

"Is the Zayn plan going anywhere?" Nick asks, still aimed at the ceiling. Louis jerks his eyes away from the exposed skin, suddenly and inexplicably guilty. "Harry hasn't said anything about it."

"Niall sold me out," Louis admits. "Apparently Zayn and Leigh-Anne are in love now. Do you know Leigh-Anne? Amazing voice. No loyalty at all. Now that I think about it, I should've just set her up with Niall."

Nick snorts. In the silence after, Louis realizes he's staring at his stomach again.

"So," Nick says. Louis's eyes fly to the side to meet Nick's, looking right back at him.

"That's a very yellow shirt," Louis says, inane and unable to help it. Nick nods, slow, eyes still on Louis's face.

Louis is suddenly struck with an idea so bad that he knows, with a clarity impossible to question, that he's going to follow through on it. "I have a plan," he says, dropping down to lie on his back besides Nick.

If Nick can tell how bad the idea is from Louis's voice – most of his friends would probably have been able to – he doesn't say so. He just turns a tiny bit on his side, so that he's partly facing Louis. Their faces are almost in line. Louis has always known lying down was a great equalizer.

If Nick is surprised to be kissed, he doesn't show that, either. Louis is turning and leaning up and drawing Nick down all in the same movement, so it's in no way the neatest start to a kiss he's ever managed, and Nick murmurs something that might be the beginning of a protest or might be a tiny giggle into his mouth when Louis's nose presses into his too hard in passing. But he's undoubtedly kissing back, enthusiastic and thorough, not fighting back against Louis's hand in his hair and not complaining when Louis clenches his hand a little anyway, and Louis licks into his mouth and tugs at his bottom lip and finds himself tipping down onto his back again, until Nick is sprawled half on top of him, one hand at Louis's jaw. It shouldn't work anymore at that point, both of them trying to guide the angle and pressure and movement, but somehow it does, messy and too close.

After a minute or two, or possible a lot longer, Louis realizes something important. He ducks his head enough that Nick gets the point, letting him get his breath enough to say, "You taste like beer."

"Only half a can," Nick says. His cheeks are flushed. This close up, Louis can see his freckles very clearly. "You?"

"Only two," Louis says. "It's okay."

He starts to close in again, but Nick draws further back, frowning a little. "Two?" he says. "You're not that big."

"Fuck off," Louis says, unwilling to be truly angry when he has such better things to focus on. "I'm not a lightweight."

"You did kiss me," Nick points out. "And you can't stand me, so –"

"You kissed me back," Louis says, knee-jerk. He knows that one isn't going to help, though. "No, see – we make out, it doesn't work out, Harry stops pulling this crap. Right? Tried and failed, so –"

"Right," Nick says. He squints at Louis. "That's definitely going to work."

"Right," Louis says. "Let me get up."

The disappointment on Nick's face is extremely gratifying, but it also makes him feel a little bad somehow, so he doesn't linger on crossing to the door and locking it.

"Oh," Nick says, when Louis drops to the bed again, half-covering Nick's body with his own this time. "Still at the trying part, then."

"Yep," Louis says, moving in again, aiming for the quirked-up corner of Nick's mouth.

 

* * *

 

At some point while Louis is kissing down his throat and mouthing at the hinge of his jaw, Nick becomes gradually aware of noise outside the room. It's hard to tell over the music, but it sounds like someone dragging something heavy.

"Louis?" a voice says outside. Niall, easily identifiable as always, even under extreme circumstances like these ones. The handle rattles. "Oh, for – hey, open up! Who's in there? Seriously, that's not on, open the door, guys."

Louis, still moving over Nick's neck, barks a laugh right by his ear. Nick swats at him, wincing, and Louis laughs again and ducks away.

" _Louis_?" Niall yells outside the door. "Tomlinson, are you actually hooking up with somebody in there? Ed's going to murder you."

"Ha," Louis says, with very quiet satisfaction. Nick tips his head back and tries not to start laughing himself.

"Louis, come on, I don't have anywhere to put all this crap," Niall calls. "Go have sex in your own bed, that's disgusting."

Nick distinctly remembers Harry once telling an epic, impressively detailed and possibly-true story about Niall having a threesome in one of their friends' homes during a party at one point, so he isn't sure how seriously Louis is meant to take this. Louis's grin doesn't seem to indicate that he's all that impressed.

Nick tips his head up again and kisses that grin fainter, looser, until it fades completely. Louis's face, glimpsed just before he chases Nick down again, is still amused but intent, focused on Nick's mouth. Nick likes it better to a degree that's both entirely expected and not at all.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

"You know, I like stupid movies and all," Nick says, "but this is officially too stupid for me."

"Hold on, he's about to blow a hole through the wall," Louis says, eyes still glued to the TV.

"Oh, you've seen it before," Nick says. "Of course you have. Why wouldn't you re-watch bad kung fu movies from the Eighties?"

"It's not from the Eighties and it's not a kung fu movie, but keep trying," Louis says. On the TV the dialogue hits a new level of awful.

"He just did kung fu," Nick points out. "He's been doing kung fu the whole time. I think? I admit I'm not an expert."

"I think it's karate," Louis says. "It's just extra, anyway. This is definitely a movie about blowing things up. Completely different genre."

Nick's well aware that dating sometimes means compromise, and sometimes it just means suffering. He's been trapped into all kinds of mind-numbing activities by guys he's fancied, including ones where he was forced to watch things he'd have paid good money to avoid. He'd certainly go terrible action movie over boring arthouse movie every time, because, if nothing else, hating high-art things always makes him feel stupid, and hating this movie is actually making him feel pretty good about himself.

Hating high-art things also makes him feel vaguely like he should be hiding his real opinion and pretending to know what's going on, and that has led to unexpected but horrible consequences before. At least Nick never feels like he needs to hide his real opinions from Louis. Right now he only feels like he needs to whine about them more loudly until Louis gives up and lets him turn the channel. At a pinch, Nick will go for turning off the television altogether and doing something marginally more entertaining, like shaving all of their hair off or something.

"Oh, god, look at that, they really had no idea how to do special effects," Louis says. "Why even bother with a green screen? They could just finger-paint the entire set on a piece of paper behind him, it wouldn't look any less convincing."

"Exactly," Nick says. "This is a really bad movie. And I don't think that accent actually exists on earth. Give me the remote."

"No," Louis says, holding it out of reach and clearly pretending fiercely that Nick can't get it with one lunge. "We already watched all this way. See, he's going to get to the warehouse soon."

"Do you have this movie memorized?" Nick says, scandalized despite himself. "How many times have you watched it?"

"How many times have you listened to that Beyonce album?" Louis says. "And don't tell me it's for work, I do tune in sometimes. You lot haven't played it in ages."

It isn't news, really. Louis has always been friends with Harry, after all, and he's even sat in on the show; of course he listens sometimes. Nick puts it aside in favor of more important things.

"All right, A, you  _work_  in music, you don't actually think those are comparable things," he says. "And B, that's Beyonce. This is terrible Eighties kung fu."

"It isn't," Louis says. "Shut up, he's about to run this guy over."

His left hand is still absently playing with the fingers on Nick's right, twisting the rings and smoothing down the knuckles, scrubbing lightly at his palm. He's been doing it on and off for the last hour. Nick's mostly sure he hasn't noticed.

"A cinematic masterpiece," Nick says, after the hero's stolen jeep has sped away. "Let's see what's on the other channels." He's just about ready to choose the news if it'd get him away from this. Unfortunately, while Nick has friends this would actually work on, he already knows it has no chance on Louis.

"We can't change the channel before he saves the hostages," Louis says, in the voice of someone stating the obvious. "Look, you probably have hundreds of texts to answer just since you put your phone on silent, aren't you dying to do that?" he slants Nick a sly grin. "I'll make it worth your while."

Nick would, in fact, really like to answer all his texts, but he hates typing with his left hand. It seems a bit too silly to say so, though.

"It's fine," he sighs. "Can't stop before he saves the hostages, can I. something surprising could happen any second now."

"That's the spirit," Louis says, the pad of his little finger dancing down the side of Nick's palm, already fully absorbed again in the hero's struggle to kill thirty people with a flame thrower.

 

* * *

 

Nick comes up from sleep slowly, dimly registering that the light is on in the bathroom. Someone is rummaging around in there. It's weird enough to wake him up a little more, pushing away the sure knowledge that it's the middle of the night and it'd be a crime against humanity if he were fully awake right now.

There are noises, a cupboard closing, water running in the sink. Sleepy logic says someone is burgling his bathroom. Nick is vaguely aware that seems unlikely somehow.

He remembers, dream-like, Louis saying, "Well, you're the one who got me into this stupid series. Don't you want to know who the killer is?"

"There's two more episodes after this one," Nick had said. "Do you want to hear about how early I have to wake up?"

"No, no," Louis had said. "You've told me. A lot. Well, all right, I suppose –"

"Just stay and finish it," Nick had said, struck by inspiration. "My friends've filched all of my spare keys, but you can just shut the door behind you –"

"I'm not going to do that," Louis had said, disbelieving.

"It's fine, it's not a terrifying neighborhood like yours," Nick had said. "And the door downstairs has a key, you know. I've done it before, Collette forgets her key all the time."

"So you're basically asking people to come and take your things," Louis had said, and he was apparently right, because now there's a burglar in Nick's bathroom going through his hair products.

Nick wonders vaguely if he should wake up enough to go find a baseball bat or something. He doesn't think he has one.

The door opens, light spilling into the room. Nick wakes up enough to roll over. "Whuh?"

"Oh, sorry," Louis says, low. Nick squints at him, eyes as open as he can get them. Louis is framed in the open doorway, shirtless and rubbing at his eyebrow, shadowed expression some kind of unhappy Nick isn't awake enough to parse. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I thought it'd make more sense to just stay over and go in the morning."

"Five," Nick says. This one fact of his life is tragic enough that he can always call it up, asleep or not. "Five AM."

"No, you can just wake me up ten minutes before we need to leave," Louis says. "I left you a note." He comes closer, slow. Unsure; Nick is sleepily surprised he's seen unsure Louis enough times to recognize it. "Okay?"

"Kay," Nick says. He makes his hand move enough to pat the bed besides him. "Sl'p."

Louis laughs, quiet like his voice. "Yeah, okay. Let me just…"

Nick falls mostly back asleep by the time Louis has turned off the light and climbed into bed. He cuddles in once Louis has settled down, curling closer into his body, but there's no real direction to it. He's only half-aware of Louis's lips at his shoulder, the slow movement of his fingers through Nick's hair.

 

* * *

   

"I can't believe they let you have anything to do with music," Nick says. "How can you like him? That's the most average voice I've heard since, let's see, the fifteen other voices just like it I hear  _all the bloody time_."

"Kayla can't even hit the right notes," Louis says, failing to make his voice convey even a tenth of the derision he's feeling. "That's not even not having technique, I don't think she actually has ears. And he doesn't have to have a unique voice to do interesting things with it. You're such a damned snob."

"Being very fit while you sing isn't the same as doing interesting things with your voice," Nick says. "If Kayla doesn't go to the next round I'm giving up on the season."

"Yeah, right," Louis says. "Shut up and pass the popcorn."

"Happy anniversary, by the way," Nick says, passing the bowl over.

Louis quirks an amused eyebrow at him, accepting it. "Happy anniversary. You know, Haz'll be devastated when he hears that's how we celebrated."

On the television, someone he's forgotten the name of starts into a modernized version of Fools Rush In. Louis disapproves of both the choice and the fact that the universe is apparently laughing at him.

He tips a little further into Nick's side. Nick tightens his arm around Louis's shoulders and steals the popcorn bowl back.

"Serves him right," Nick says. Louis is sleepily humming the chorus along with the television. He isn't too sure when he started.

"Yeah," Louis says, yawning, when the last notes wind down. "We can still go out to actually celebrate on Friday, right?"

"Of course," Nick says. He sounds sleepy, too, mumbling into Louis's hair. Matt is probably going to yell at him tomorrow for staying up to see the end. "We can multitask, even, celebrate Kayla going to semi-finals at the same time."

"You're sleeping on the sofa tonight," Louis says, and turns his head to kiss the underside of Nick's jaw.


End file.
